/ 



frapsfi^ur^d 



lift. 



By J. R. Miller, D.D. 



Published by 
Ward <fc Drummond, 

71 1 Broadway, 
New York. 



r 



THE) 



TRANSFIGURED LIFE 



WORDS TO HELP IN MAKING 
SHINING LIVES 



/ 



BY 



J. R. MILLER, D.D. 

Author of "Silent Times," "Making the Most of Life," 

"The Every Day of Life," "Summer Gathering 

for Winter's Need," etc. 



393, 



NEW YORK 

WARD & DRUMMOND 

711 Broadway 




^ -VI 



•, 



% 



Copyright, 1893, 

BY 

WARD & DRUMMOND. 



'■ 









W(l<Y<~ v+ttf"- uc '>^ 
Lit «~h~ im^U h* ^ T "* • J™** 

fait. a***C tU£'*u» *p PL 

fa/ft afyucfoyuiXi f*$*nt£, 



■ 



When Charles Kingsley was dying one who 
bent over him heard him whisper, " How beauti- 
ful God is ! " 

There is a prayer in an old Psalm which 
pleads : " Let the beauty of the Lord our God be 
upon us. " 

There is a word in an Epistle which says : 
" We know that . . . we shall be like Him : for 
we shall see Him even as He is." 



THE TRANSFIGURED LIFE. 



GOD wants our lives to be bright. He wants 
them to shine like lamps in the darkness. 
The world needs nothing so much as light — not 
light blazing in the far-off sky, but light pouring 
out softly, low down, close to the earth, from hu- 
man lives which have been kindled at the heart of 
God. 

The aim of the gospel of Christ is to make 
human lives bright with the brightness of God's 
own holiness. There is a word in one of St. Paul's 
letters which puts this truth in the form of an ex- 
hortation. " Be ye transformed by the renewing 
of your mind." The word " transformed" sug- 
gests a change from dulness to brightness. A 
German tale describes a fisherman's log-hut which 
was transformed into an exquisite temple of silver 
by a lamp which burned within. This is an illus- 
tration of what takes place in a human life when 
the lamp of the Holy Spirit burns within it. Its 
earthliness is transformed into heavenliness. 

The same word that St. Paul uses is used also to 
5 



The Transfigured Life. 



describe the change which took place when otir 
Lord was transfigured. Ordinarily there was no 
unusual brightness on his face, but now his fea- 
tures shone with dazzling lustre. " Be ye trans- 
figured.' ' 

Of course this does not mean that our human 
faces shall shine as did Christ's that night. The 
meaning is that our life and character shall be 
changed, until all the beautiful things that are in 
Christ shall appear in us. It is a spiritual trans- 
figuration. For example, take the beloved dis- 
ciple. It is believed that in his youth he was not 
sweet-spirited, gentle-hearted, loving and lovable, 
as when we know him in his riper years, but was 
impetuous, with quick temper, fiery speech, and 
strong resentments. As the years passed, however, 
he grew into gentleness. He listened to Christ's 
teachings, and the blessed words fell into his 
heart. He became a friend of Christ, and in the 
intimacy the sweetness of his divine Friend entered 
into his soul. He lay upon Christ's bosom, and 
the beatings of love throbbed themselves into 
John's own heart, until lo! John loved as Jesus 
did. His life was transfigured. 

What was possible for John is possible to every 
other Christian in his own measure. The same or 
like transformation was wrought in Peter. The 
rude, swearing fisherman of Galilee became the 
noble apostle whose influence now fills the world. 



The Transfigured Life. 



The same change was wrought in Paul, whom we 
first know as a violent persecutor and then as a 
glorious missionary. 

Sometimes there is almost a physical transfigu- 
ration. Soon after Judson reached Burma, he met 
one day a native woman. He could not yet speak 
a word of the language, but touching the woman's 
hand he looked up and pointed upward. She 
went home and told her friends that she had met 
an angel. His very face seemed transfigured. 
Stephen's face appeared like an angel's as he stood 
before the council, witnessing for Christ. Now 
and then a saintly face is seen that seems to have 
almost a supernatural glow in it, as if a holy fire 
burned back of it. Every soul writes its story 
more or less distinctly on the face, which is the 
index of the inner life. Discontent soon shows its 
fevered spirit in fretted features. Anger soon re- 
veals its unlovableness in the sinister lines it stamps 
on the brow. Unholy passion in time blots the 
delicate marks of purity and innocence from the 
countenance and leaves instead the tarnished mar- 
rings wrought by its own vileness. There is no 
cherished sin which does not work up out of the 
heart, however deeply it is hidden there, and re- 
veal itself in some way in the face. Men think 
their unhallowed secret of sin is not known, but 
ofttimes they are mistaken; the thing they 
suppose hidden from all eyes but their own, 



8 The Transfigured Life. 

all eyes see in tell-tale signs which no art can 
obscure. 

In like manner, good in the heart works its way 
up into the face, and prints its own beauty there. 
Love in the life softens the features and gives 
them a warmth like the gentle beauty of spring 
flowers. Peace in the heart soon gives a quiet 
calm to the countenance. Many a perturbed, rest- 
less face grows placid and reposeful under the in- 
fluence of peace. Purity in the soul shows itself 
in the upward look and the thoughtful reverence 
which tell of communion with God. Benevolence 
writes its autograph on brow and cheek. Thus 
in a sense even the physical features share in the 
transfiguration of the life of faith and holiness. 

But there is another transformation. The face 
may not grow bright and beautiful under the in- 
fluence of grace in the heart, but when one is a 
true believer in Christ and has the Holy Spirit 
dwelling in him, there is a transformation of the 
life which always takes place. It is compared to 
a change in the dress. The " old man" with his 
corrupt deeds — malice, wrath, blasphemy, filthy 
communication, lying, and all that belongs to the 
flesh — is put off, and the "new man," with his 
tenderness, kindness, humbleness of mind, meek- 
ness, long-suffering, forbearance, forgiveness and 
peace, is put on. It is the same that is meant 



The Transfigured Life. 



here in the exhortation, " Be ye transfigured by 
the renewing of your mind." 

It is very important that we learn how this pro- 
cess of transformation may be wrought, for who 
would not have*a transfigured life? The words 
that cluster about the exhortation already quoted 
in the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans 
may help us to answer this question : " I beseech 
you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, ac- 
ceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 
And be not fashioned according to this world ; but 
be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, 
that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable 
and perfect will of God." 

The first step is the consecration of the whole be- 
ing to God. " I beseech you ... to present your 
bodies ... to God." Surrender to God must 
always be the beginning of spiritual transforma- 
tion. We must get our life into the divine hands 
before the heavenly beauty can be wrought upon 
it by them. Mark well, too, that you must pre- 
sent yourself to God, must bring the offering to his 
altar with your own hands. No one can do it for 
you, no saintly mother, no godly friend. We are 
our own in a strange, mysterious way. We are 
sovereigns of our own lives. But we are our own 
with the obligation to give ourselves to God. 



10 The Transfigured Life. 

This truth is put in a striking way in Tennyson's 
" In Memoriam :" 

" Our wills are ours — we know not how ; 
Our wills are ours to make them thine. " 

There can be no transforming work done in us 
until we have made this surrender. We must be 
laid upon God's altar — brought and laid there by 
our own hands. 

Another step is indicated in the words " a living 
sacrifice." Our powers are not to be crushed and 
broken and mutilated, but are to be devoted to 
service, to activity. The old mediaeval monks 
fancied that the truest sacrifice was a life with- 
drawn from the world, spent in hermit caves or 
monasteries, where they crucified the flesh by fast- 
ings, tortures, and penances. That is not the 
kind of sacrifice God wants. That is marring, 
wasting, destroying God's blessed gift of life. He 
desires us to make the most of all our powers of 
being — body, mind, and spirit — and then to give 
all to him for use in the blessing of our fellow- 
men. 

Nothing helps more to develop the transfigured 
life in us than work. Some people chafe because 
they have so much to do. Their days are filled 
from morning to night with dreary, monotonous 
task-work. With men it is the never-ending work 
of the farm, the office, the store, the shop, the 



The Transfigured Life. 11 

mill. With women it is the thousand duties of 
the household, the care of the home, the tending 
of children, the weary formalities of social life. 
There are many people who think their greatest 
obstacle in the way of spiritual growth and trans- 
formed character is in the drudgeries to which 
they are indentured by their condition. They 
fancy that if they could be freed from these and 
could have leisure for reading, for study, and for 
elevated social fellowship, they would grow into 
far more radiant beauty of character. 

But this is a mistaken impression. The one 
only perfectly transformed life the world has ever 
known was spent, " not with a book, but with a 
hammer and a saw." The school of common task- 
work, with its perpetual round of dreary duties, 
is the best place in the world in which to attain 
noble spiritual culture. There is no other way in 
which one's life will be so surely, so quickly trans- 
figured, as in the faithful, happy, cheerful doing 
of every-day tasks. We need to remember that 
this world is not so much a place for doing things 
as for making character. Household life is not 
primarily a sphere for good cooking, tidy keeping 
of rooms, thorough sweeping and dusting, careful 
nursing and training of children, hospitable enter- 
tainment of friends, and the thousand things that 
must be done each day ; it is a sphere for trans- 
forming women's souls into radiant beauty. The 



12 The Transfigured Life. 

shop, the mill, the factory, the store, the office, 
the farm are not primarily places for making 
machines, selling goods, weaving cloths, building 
engines, and growing crops ; they are, first of all, 
places for making men, building character, grow- 
ing souls. Eight in the midst of what some people 
call drudgery is the very best place to get the 
transformed, transfigured life. The doing of 
common tasks patiently, promptly, faithfully, 
cheerfully, makes the character beautiful and 
bright. 

But we must take heed always that we do our 
tasks, whatever they are, with love in our heart. 
Doing any kind of work unwillingly, with com- 
plaint and murmuring, hurts the life. 

There is another suggestion as to the way to 
have the life transformed, in the counsel : " Be not 
fashioned according to this world." If we are 
Christians we are not of this world. Our citizen- 
ship is in heaven. We are foreigners here. It is 
our duty to live the heavenly life in the midst 
of this world's atmosphere, its circumstances and 
conditions. We are here for our Master, to do his 
work, to reveal him to men, to do, in our little 
measure, the things he would do if he were in our 
place. 

We are therefore to be in the world as Jesus 
was in it. He maintained the heavenly life with- 
out spot, in the midst of all the sin there was 



The Transfigured Life. 13 

about him. The world made no impression on 
his holiness, his purity. 

We need to guard our lives against the unholy 
influences of the world. We are in danger of 
lowering our standard of conduct and character to 
be more in harmony with the people about us. 
We are in danger of slackening the restraints of 
virtue and falling in with the easy-going morality 
of the times. But that is not the way to the 
transfigured life. The world's touch tarnishes 
and dims the lustre of holiness. 

Some of us meet injustice, wrong treatment, 
harshness, rudeness, unkindness, from those among 
whom we live and work. It is not easy to keep 
our hearts sweet and loving all the while, in such 
experiences. It is easier for us to do as the world 
does — harden ourselves against the injustice or 
rudeness, or grow bitter, resentful, soured. That 
is what too many do in the midst of the selfish- 
ness, harshness, and wrong they meet in their con- 
dition. But this is not the transforming that is 
toward Christlikeness. The struggle between the 
good and the evil in us goes on continually, but 
when the world is getting the better of us, when 
the good in us is being smothered, when the lamp 
within our bosom is being quenched, when its 
flame is growing dimmer, we are losing in the 
struggle. Instead of being transformed our life is 
being darkened. 



14 The Transfigured Life. 

We need to keep an incessant watch upon our- 
selves, in our contacts with the world, lest we be- 
come conformed to its life. It is a sad thing for 
any of us, if instead of growing daily into a clearer, 
fuller likeness to Christ, our spiritual life is fail- 
ing and the features of our Lord's beauty are be- 
coming dimmer and dimmer in us. People say: 
" I cannot help it. I cannot resist the incessant 
grind and pressure of the worldly life about me. 
I cannot keep my heart gentle and my spirit sweet 
amid all that is mean, unjust, selfish, unreasona- 
ble, and even cruel about me." But while never 
easy, it is possible to be more than conquerors over 
all these antagonistic influences, through Him that 
loved us. 

" We who are of the earth need not be earthy ; 

God made our nature like his own, divine ; 
Nothing but selfishness can be unworthy 

Of his pure image meant through us to shine. 
The death of deaths it is, ourselves to smother 

In our own pleasure, his dishonored gift ; 
And life— eternal life— to love each other ; 

Our souls with Christ in sacrifice to lift. " 

Another lesson to be well marked is that the 
transfigured life can be gotten only by the renew- 
ing of the mind. "Mind" here stands for the 
whole inner life — the will, the affections, the 
desires, the feelings, the motives. The change 
must begin within. We must be born again, born 



The Transfigured Life. 15 

from above. A new divine life must come down 
from God and enter into us. The New Testament 
teaches that the Holy Spirit is given to every one 
who believes in Christ. To be a Christian is to 
have a new life in the soul. Christ himself lives 
in each one who believes in him. St. Paul puts 
it very graphically when he says that he is dead, 
crucified with Christ, that is, as to his old life. 
Then he adds, " Yet I live ; and yet no longer I, 
but Christ liveth in me ; and that life which I now 
live in the flesh, I live in faith, the faith which is 
in the Son of God, who loved me and gave him- 
self up for me." These words reveal the secret of 
St. Paul's wonderful life. It was Christ living in 
him that made him the man he was. This is the 
secret of every transfigured life. There is no 
other way to get it. We must open our heart and 
let Christ enter into us and fill us. He is ever 
eager to do this and will possess us just as far as 
we yield our life up to him. 

What are the qualities that transfigure a life? 
We all know the things that are beautiful in char- 
acter. St. Paul gives at least two lists of such 
qualities. In one place he writes: "Whatsoever 
things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, 
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever 
things are of good report; if there be any virtue, 
and if there be any praise, think on these things" 



16 The Transfigured Life. 

— all of these are shining qualities and make a 
life bright and radiant. 

Another cluster of transfiguring graces St. Paul 
names in another place : " The fruit of the Spirit 
is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, good- 
ness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance." These 
qualities are given as the fruit of the Spirit, of 
divine, not of human origin. When the Holy 
Spirit lives in a heart, these things appear in the 
life. A character is transfigured when it has in 
it these features. 

The first is "love." We all know that love is a 
transfiguring quality. But what is the love that 
is a fruit of the Spirit? Love for lovely and lova- 
ble people? Yes; but love for all sorts and con- 
ditions of people, as well. Some of the most 
selfish and disagreeable people you ever saw had 
an intense love for a few particular individuals. 
Anybody can love those who a,re kind, sweet- 
spirited, and unselfish. " If ye love them that 
love you, what thank have ye? for even sinners 
love those that love them." The love which the 
Holy Spirit kindles is love for unlovely people as 
well as the lovely, love for those who are not gen- 
tle and kindly, love for enemies. It is a love that 
is stirred by human need, wherever it appears, 
and that rests not in mere sentiment, but reaches 
out its hand to help and bless. 

We never tire of reading St. Paul's wonderful 



The Transfigured Life. 17 

description of love in his immortal thirteenth of 
First Corinthians: "Love suffereth long and is 
kind ; love envieth not ; love vaunteth not itself, 
is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, 
seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh not 
account of evil . . . beareth all things, believ- 
eth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all 
things.'* 

"Love suffereth long." That is patience in 
enduring things from others, things people would 
say you are not under obligation to endure: " Love 
envieth not." That is the spirit that gets as much 
enjoyment from seeing others have things as if you 
had them yourself. " Love doth not behave itself 
unseemly." That means good manners. Some 
one defines a, gentleman as one who will never give 
pain to another. Love has regard for the feelings 
of every one, no matter who it is. This spirit 
makes one always gentle, thoughtful, kind. Good 
manners are a very important part of a true Chris- 
tian life. "Love seeketh not its own." That 
means unselfishness. Even its own, that which 
it might claim as a right, it does not seek. It 
has learned the sweet lesson that it is " more blessed 
to give than to receive. " " Love is not provoked. " 
That means good temper. A great many people 
seem not to regard bad temper as anything more 
than an amiable weakness, but really it is a sad 
blot on a disposition. Love does not get pro- 



18 The Transfigured Life. 



voked. It keeps itself always sweet— at least, that 
is the ideal. 

It is wonderful how love transfigures a life. It 
changes all the world to our eyes. People are not 
seen now with critical spirit, watching for faults; 
nor with sensitive spirit, shrinking from every 
unkindly touch and resenting every rude, disa- 
greeable, or unjust thing in their treatment of us; 
nor with exacting spirit, demanding attention, 
claiming rights and measuring and counting favors 
due. Love sees in every other person one to be 
served, to be ministered unto, to be helped, to be 
patiently borne with, to be treated kindly in spite 
of his faults. Love transforms all conditions of 
life, all circumstances. Its business is to be sweet, 
no matter the weather, or the wrong, or the suffer- 
ing. Thus it takes the bitterness out of whatever 
would otherwise be bitter. Thus it makes the 
life bright and radiant. Love is a transfiguring 
quality. 

So is "joy" — another of the fruits of the Spirit. 
Joy brightens a life. It shines in the face like 
sunlight. It makes the eyes sparkle. But what 
is this joy that is a fruit of the Spirit? Anybody 
can be joyous when all things go well, when health 
is good, and business is prosperous, and the cup 
of love runs over, and the circle of friends is un- 
broken. The joy the Holy Spirit gives lives on in 
the heart when all earthly sources of gladness have 



The Transfigured Life. 19 

failed. It hides like a rainbow in the bosom of 
the da,rkest cloud and shines out in the gloom. 
There is a legend of a wondrous golden organ that 
was in some ancient monastery, which once, when 
in danger of being stolen, was cast by the monks 
into a deep river, to be hidden from the robbers ; 
and in the waters, buried out of sight in the floods, 
it still played on, pouring out its sweet music. 
This legend illustrates the heart which has in it the 
secret of Christian joy. Floods of sorrow may 
roll over it, but in the depths its song is not 
silenced. 

A certain sun-dial bears the inscription, " I 
mark only the hours that shine." That is what 
true Christian joy does. It does not take account 
of the dark hours. There are some people who 
see always only the gloomy side. Meet them on 
the brightest days, and they will have some sad 
thing of which to complain. With abounding 
mercies which they ought to remember and speak 
of, they find only the few little hardnesses of their 
lot and fill their speech with unhappy murmurings 
about these. With beauty all about them, they 
lament over the little specks and flaws that fleck 
the loveliness, and work themselves into a fever of 
discontent over these. 

It is a sore misfortune when one has formed the 
habit of seeing the dark side, the blemishes, the 
spots, the unpleasant things, while his eyes have 



20 The Transfigured Life. 

become blind to the loveliness, the happiness, the 
goodness. It is largely a matter of habit. We 
see always what we are looking for, and if our 
mind has become trained to look for trouble and 
difficulty and all dark and dreary things, we shall 
find just what we seek. On the other hand, it is 
quite as easy to form the habit of looking always 
for beauty, for good, for happiness, for gladness, 
and here, too, we shall find precisely what we seek. 
It has been said that the habit of seeing always the 
bright side in life is worth a large income to a 
man. No doubt this is true. Then it makes life 
a great deal brighter. None of us are naturally 
drawn to a gloomy person, who finds everywhere 
something to complain about. But we are all at- 
tracted to one who sees some beauty in everything 
and delights in that, while he does not fret over 
what is not bright. Joy is a transfiguring quality. 
Its secret is a glad heart, for he who has the bird 
in his heart will see a bird on every bush. 

" Peace" is another transfiguring quality. When 
there is peace in the heart the face is always radi- 
ant. But what is peace? Its element is not a 
quiet atmosphere, with happy conditions. Any 
one could have peace, of a sort, in a sweet garden 
spot, on a quiet summer evening, with only fra- 
grance and bird-songs in the air. But Christian 
peace is a holy calm that stays in the Jieart when 
the external conditions are antagonistic. There 



The Transfigured Life. 21 

is a picture which represents it — a storm-swept 
sea ; waves rolling high and strewn with wrecks, 
and here and there a drowned human form ap- 
pearing ; above, a sky filled with dark clouds, rent 
and torn by fierce lightnings; then, rising up out 
of the wild waters, a great rock, and above the 
waves, in a cleft of the rock, in the midst of a 
clump of green herbage and flowers, a dove sitting 
quietly and peacefully on her nest. Christian 
peace is the calm of the heart which is not depend- 
ent on any conditions and which no circumstances, 
however full of danger or alarm, can break. Its 
secret is, perfect trust in God. 

The lesson of peace is one that has to be learned 
in the school of life. It is not gotten by the 
changing of life's conditions so as to hide one 
away beyond the reach of storm. Nor is it ac- 
quired through the deadening of the feelings and 
sensibilities, so that life's pains and trials will no 
longer hurt the heart. This would be paying too 
great a price even for peace. It is a fruit of the 
Holy Spirit. It comes through the encircling of 
the life with God's own peace. " The peace of 
God shall guard your heart and thoughts in Christ 
Jesus." 

When you have this peace you live in a citadel 
where care cannot disturb you. Life's troubles 
come as they come to other people. Its disap- 
pointments break into your plans and hopes. Its 



22 The Transfigured Life. 

petty trials and its great sorrows are yours as well 
as your discontented neighbor's. But you have a 
secret which others have not. None of these 
things fret or move you. You accept as God's 
will the things in your lot which you cannot 
change, laying them all out of your hands into 
God's. 

There is a wonderful secret of endurance in ac- 
quiescence, in simply giving up to things which 
we cannot change and not fretting over them; in 
bearing cheerfully what must be borne ; in making 
the best of unpleasant conditions in which we 
must stay for the time. This acquiescence takes 
out of circumstances the bitterness, the hardness, 
the power to hurt us, and makes them serve us 
and do us good. 

Peace is a transfiguring quality. It causes the 
very face to shine. It adorns the life with radiant 
beauty. It makes the whole world bright to the 
eyes. It robs trouble of its power to disturb the 
heart. It paints rainbows on storm-clouds. 

"Kindness" is another of these transfiguring 
qualities. Kindness is love doing little things, 
things that seem scarcely worth doing, and yet 
which mean much to those for whom they are 
wrought. Kindness lends a hand when another 
is burdened. It speaks the cheerful word when a 
heart is discouraged. It is always doing good 
turns to somebody. It goes about performing, 



The Transfigured Life. 23 

almost unconsciously, its wayside ministries, with 
a touch of blessing for everybody. It scatters its 
small, nameless favors everywhere. Until we 
think of it specially, we do not realize how large 
a factor in the most useful and helpful lives in 
this world is kindness. Few qualities do more to 
make a life bright and beautiful. 

" Goodness" is another transfiguring feature. 
God is good, and goodness is being like God. It 
includes holiness, which is pure and shines in 
crystal clearness in the life which possesses it. It 
includes all of love's excellence. Nothing does 
more to transfigure a character than simple good- 
ness. 

" Faithfulness" is the next quality in this clus- 
ter of fruits of the Spirit — the faith that makes 
faithful. This includes faithfulness to God. No 
fidelity in life's common relations and in the duties 
of man to man can ever make faithfulness to God 
unnecessary. The first of the commandments is 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart." This duty of love to God is first, in the 
sense that nothing else counts unless this comes 
before it. Then follows faithfulness in all other 
relations and duties. Too many people are not 
faithful in little things. They are not to be abso- 
lutely depended upon. They do not always keep 
their promises. They break engagements. They 
fail to pay their debts promptly. They come be- 



24 The Transfigured Life. 

hind time to appointments. They are neglectful 
and careless in little things. In general they are 
good people, but their life is honeycombed with 
small failures. One who can be positively de- 
pended upon, who is faithful in the least things 
as well as in the greatest, whose life and character 
are true through and through, gives out a light in 
this world which honors Christ and blesses others. 
Says George MacDonald, "To know one person 
who is absolutely to be trusted will do more for a 
man's moral nature — yes, and even his spiritual 
nature — than all the sermons he ever heard or can 
hear." Faithfulness transfigures. 

So does "meekness," the next in this list of 
shining qualities. Meekness is not a popular 
word. Many of us do not like it. We pronounce 
it weakness. We say we ought not to submit so 
easily to wrongs; we ought not to allow others to 
rob us of our rights; we ought not to give place 
so readily to selfish persons who do us injustice, 
who crowd us aside, who use us as stepping-stones 
on which their own feet climb upward. Still it 
remains true that meekness shines as one of the 
brightest qualities in the character of Him whose 
was the one perfect life ; " who, when he was re- 
viled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he 
threatened not, but committed himself to him 
that judgeth righteously." He gave love for hate. 
He lifted not his hand to resist any wrong. He 



The Transfigured Life. 25 

uttered no word to claim any right. He was meek 
and lowly in heart. In his teaching, too, our 
Lord gave high commendation to meekness. He 
put it among the beatitudes, with a promise of 
great blessing. Meekness makes a life beautiful, 
radiant, Christly. 

There is a legend which illustrates the excel- 
lence of meekness and humility. Long ago, there 
lived a saint so good that the angels came down to 
see how a mortal could be so godly. He went 
about his daily work, diffusing virtue as a star 
diffuses light, as a flower emits perfume, without 
being aware of it. Two words told the story of 
his days — he gave ; he forgave. Yet these words 
never fell from his lips ; they were only expressed 
in his smile, in his forbearance and charity. 

The angels asked God that the gift of miracles 
might be given to this good man. The answer 
was, "Yes; ask him what he wishes/' So the 
angels spoke to him about it. Would he choose 
that the touch of his hand should heal the sick? 
He said "No." He would rather God should do 
that. Would he have power to convert souls? 
He answered "No;" that was the Holy Spirit's 
work. What then did he desire? He said, " That 
God may give me his grace." When pressed still 
further to choose the particular power he would 
have, he replied, " That I may do a great deal of 
good without ever knowing it." Then it was de- 



26 The Transfigured Life. 

cided that every time the saint's shadow should 
fall behind or on either side, so that he could not 
see it, it should have the power to cure disease, 
soothe pain, and comfort sorrow. So it came to 
pass that, falling thus out of his sight, his shadow 
made withered plants grow again, and fading 
flowers sweet, gave health to pale children and joy 
to unhappy mothers. But the saint was never 
aware of the blessings that flowed from him. And 
the people, respecting his lowly humility, even 
forgot his name and spoke of him as The Holy 
Shadow. 

Such is the blessing of lowly meekness. It 
transfigures the life, while he who wears the 
brightness is not aware of it. Moses wist not that 
his face shone. This unconsciousness of spiritual 
beauty is itself the highest element of the beauty. 
When a man knows that he is good, the lustre of 
the goodness is dimmed. When one is aware that 
he is doing noble things a large part of the noble- 
ness is gone. 

There is one other element named in this group 
of transfiguring qualities — "temperance." The 
word is used in a broad sense and means self-con- 
trol. Not much thought is given usually to this 
element. The word "temperance" is unpopular 
with many people, and, besides, is used almost 
exclusively in a restricted sense. But self-control 
is a vital element in character. It is the hand on 



The Transfigured Life. 27 

the reins. To have a life whose powers we cannot 
control is a fearful thing. The more magnificent 
the life may be, the more terrible it is not to be 
able to rule it. The true object of all education 
and discipline is to develop all the powers of the 
life to their highest possibilities, and then to hold 
them in perfect mastery. A word of wisdom tells 
us, " Better is he that ruleth his own spirit than 
he that taketh a city." We all admire the power 
in a man which enables him to stand quiet and 
strong amid provocations, not letting loose the 
pent-up feeling of anger, growing a little pale, 
perhaps, but speaking no bitter word. " Oh, if I 
had not uttered that sharp retort, and given way 
to that uncharitable judgment, how much better 
it would have been!" was the pained confession of 
one who had been thrown off his guard at a criti- 
cal moment. Happy are we if we have never had 
like painful experience. One minute of unbridled 
passion has ofttimes left consequences of shame 
and sorrow which years could not undo. 

Our aim should be to obtain perfect self-mastery, 
and never to lose it. Then shall our rule over our 
turbulent life keep it from folly and sin. Not our 
tongue only, but our temper, and all the lower 
qualities of our being, shall be then held in con- 
trol. There is not an element in our nature that 
needs to be crushed or destroyed; everything is 
meant to be under control of conscience and will, 



28 The Transfigured Life. 

and to be used to honor God and bless the world. 
Men found a wild torrent in the mountains. They 
built a flume for it and it turned a thousand wheels 
and spindles. That is what God wants us to do 
with the torrents we find in our being. Self-con- 
trol is having the mastery ; it is ruling all the life's 
powers for Christ. Self-control is a transfiguring 
quality. 

These are illustrations enough to show what is 
meant by a transfigured life. These are some of 
the qualities that appear in it. In a word, it is 
the beauty of Christ shining in a human life. 
There is a little prayer in one of the Psalms, which 
says, " Let the beauty of the Lord our God be 
upon us!" This is not too high a prayer for any 
one of us to use every day. Christ came into this 
world, and lived and died, to make it possible for 
us to wear the divine beauty. We may wear it not 
merely as a holyday dress or high priest's garment, 
T^hen we are engaged in some religious service; we 
may wear it also when we are at our daily work. 
The beauty of the Lord shines just as bright in 
home-spun attire, in the midst of the dust and 
clatter of the shop or the mill, or amid the lowly 
duties of the kitchen, as it does in the special 
dress of the Sabbath, in the sacredness and quiet- 
ness of the sanctuary. The transfigured life is 
not a matter of place or time or occupation: it 
is a matter of character. Many of the world's 



The Transfigured Life. 29 

most radiant saints walk the earth in lowliest 
disguises. 

Transfiguration is wrought in human life by the 
indwelling of Christ. In what measure Christ 
enters into us and fills us and abides in us, depends 
upon the measure of our surrender to him. He is 
ready to fill us and live in us. A perfumer bought 
an earthenware vase and filled it with attar of 
roses. The rich perfume entered into the material 
of the vase and completely permeated it. Long 
after it ceased to be used by the perfumer it still 
carried the fragrance. Even when it was old and 
broken, the shattered and worthless fragments of 
the vase retained the sweetness. So it is when the 
love of God has been shed abroad in a human heart 
by the divine Spirit, and the earthly life has been 
struck through with the life of Christ. It is all 
Christ. Self dies; Christ lives in the soul, and 
his beauty shines out in the life. 

The object of all Christian culture is to attain 
the likeness of Christ. We read the Bible to get 
glimpses of his beauty, that we may assimilate it 
in our own character. We pray, that our long- 
ings for his holiness may be realized. We resist 
temptation and seek to do what is right, that we 
may shape our life into the pattern shown to us 
in the holy mount. In every heart in which the 
Holy Spirit dwells there is a new life seeking to 
express itself in new tempers, dispositions, and 



30 The Transfigured Life. 

affections, in new developments of character, in 
new conduct, new aims, new service. The trans- 
figuration of Christ was the shining out through 
his human flesh of the divine glory that dwelt 
within. A transfigured Christian life is the Christ 
within us so possessing all our being that the 
brightness glows in the outer life and character. 

" Wonderful the whiteness of thy glory ; 
Can we truly that perfection share? 
Yes ; our lives are pages of thy story, 

We thy shape and superscription bear ; 
Tarnished forms — torn leaves — but thou canst mend 
them, 
Thou thine own completeness canst unfold 
From our imperfections, and wilt end them — 
Dross consuming, turning dust to gold. " 

Yet the highest reaches we can attain here are 
only broken fragments of the full divine beauty. 
At the best, we can only become dimly transfigured ; 
only faintly does the beauty of the Lord appear in 
us in this world. The last design made by the 
great painter, Albert Diirer, was a drawing show- 
ing Christ on his cross. It was all completed ex- 
cept the face of the divine Sufferer, when the artist 
was summoned away by death. At the end of the 
longest and holiest life, we shall have but a part 
of the picture of Christ wrought upon our soul. 
Our best striving shall leave but a fragment of 
the matchless beauty. The glory of that blessed 



The Transfigured Life. 31 

Face we cannot reproduce. But when we go away 
from our little fragment of transfiguration, we 
shall look, a moment afterward, upon the glorious 
divine features, and, seeing Jesus as he is, shall 
be like him. 



UUH 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A V/ORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
{724)779-2111 



